Name _________________
Plant Evolution Webquest
Use the following website to answer the questions 1-3:
http://scitec.uwichill.edu.bb/bcs/bl14apl/conq.htm
(Put “The First Land Plants” into the search box, use the information on the box at the end of this
paper to come up with key words for this website)
1. What plant-like organisms are believed to be the ancestors of modern plants? To which kingdom
of organisms do these plant-like organisms belong?
2. What are three characteristics that the organisms we believe to be the ancestors of land plants
share with today’s land plants? Be sure to put this answer into your own words. (In other words,
don’t just copy information from the website – then you aren’t learning anything!) What do you think
is meant by “Reserves: starch” on the website?
3. What were some of the challenges the first plants on land would have faced? There may be some
vocabulary terms here that you need to research before you can answer this question and understand
what you have written!
Use the following website to answer question 4:
http://www.purchon.com/ecology/niche.htm
4. What is a “niche”?
Use the website shown here to answer questions 5 and 6:
http://www.fhs.d211.org/departments/science/bgraba/Links/Advantages%20of%20moving%20onto
%20land.htm
5. What advantages were there to being on land that would have made it worth it for plants to risk
facing all of the perils associated with coming out of the water? Be sure to put these into your own
words again! If you can’t do that, you don’t understand the material!
6. What is meant by “gas exchange,” and why would it have been easier on the land?
Use this website to answer the following questions about the group of plants referred to as
GYMNOSPERMS:
http://scitec.uwichill.edu.bb/bcs/bl14apl/gym1.htm
7. What characteristic do all gymnosperms share? Before looking at the website to find examples,
can you list some examples of plants you think might be gymnosperms based on the definition you
have found?
Use the following website to answer a few questions about gymnosperms:
http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookDiversity_6.html
8. What are the four major groups of gymnosperms? Answer in a complete sentence!
9. For each of the four major groups of gymnosperms, give some examples of plants that belong to
each group.
10. Go back to number 9 and put a circle around any of the plant examples you listed that you were
familiar with.
11. Go back to number 9 and put a box around any of the plant examples you listed that you had
never heard of before.
12. For those that you have a box around, search the Internet to learn about one or two interesting
features of those plants and describe them here.
For questions 13-16, use this website:
http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_xylemphloem.html
13. What does it mean when a botanist describes a plant as being a “vascular plant”?
14. What is xylem? What is its role in the plant?
15. What is phloem? What is its role in the plant?
16. Are gymnosperms vascular or nonvascular? If you need a little help in answering this question, click
on the gymnosperm link on the right-hand side of the webpage
Use the site below to answer questions 17-19.
http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_moss.html
17. Are mosses, liverworts and hornworts (which are collectively called the “bryophytes”) vascular or
nonvascular?
18. Give two reasons why all bryophytes are short in stature. Simply listing two words will not be good
enough. An explanation is required to fully answer this question.
19. Do the bryophytes have roots? If not, what do they have that anchors them in the ground? Do a little
searching on the Internet to see if the structures that bryophytes have are also used for absorbing water
and minerals from the soil like roots do.
This next website can be used to answer questions 20-21
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/r/e/rer185/biol110hmain.htm
20. What are two important characteristics that biologists use to classify plants as seedless vascular
plants?
21. What are the four major groups of seedless vascular plants? Give both their scientific group name
and their more common group name.
Use this website to answer questions 22-26
http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_angiosperm.html
22. What two important innovations evolved in the angiosperms that allowed them to become wildly
successful?
23. Why do you suppose these innovations increased the likelihood of their reproductive success? You
may want to check out the biology4kids.com site to help answer this question.
24. What are the two major groups of angiosperms?
Use this website: http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookPLANTANATII.html
25. Describe three characteristics of monocots, and list several examples of plants that are monocots.
26. Describe four characteristics of dicots, and list several examples of plants that are dicots.
27. The four major groups of plants studied in this exercise (gymnosperms, bryophytes, seedless
vascular plants, and angiosperms) were listed out of evolutionary order. Using what you have learned,
try to list the four major groups in order from the earliest plants to colonize the land to the last plants to
appear on land.
Using the table on page 580 of your textbook, answer the following question:
28. Which plant phylum contains the largest number of species? How many species are in this group?
29. Which plant phylum contains the fewest total number of species? How many species are in this
group?
Plant Evolution & Diversity WebQuest Links
1-3
These are the
7
links and the
questions
they will help 1719
with.
The First Land Plants
4
Gondar Design Ecology
5-6
The Advantages of
Moving onto Land
Gymnosperms Introduction
8-12
Gymonsperms
1316
Plant: Xylem &
Phloem
Plants: Liverworts &
Mosses
2021
Vascular Seedless
Plants
2224
Plant: Angiosperms
2526
Plant Structure
These Links are for additional resources
Kingdom
Plantae
Vascular Vs.
Nonvascular
Review
Plant Diversity
Vascular Vs. Nonvascular
Review 2
Plant Evolution &
Classification
Ferns and Gymnosperms
Review
Natural Perspective:
KIngdom Plantae
Angiosperm Review